


I'll be the one who sticks around

by PeterParkers7EvilExes (antimone_ii)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, M/M, Peter is college aged, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 04:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antimone_ii/pseuds/PeterParkers7EvilExes
Summary: It starts with regrets. Things Tony should have done for him when he was around, things he wishes he’d spoilt him with but hesitated on. If Peter was here, he knows he’d turn it all down. But Peter isn’t here. So Tony builds his collection of regrets.





	I'll be the one who sticks around

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Starker Valentine's Day Event 2019. Peter's of age.   
> Prompt: Gifts

It starts with regrets. Things Tony should have done for him when he was around, things he wishes he’d spoilt him with but hesitated on. If Peter was here, he knows he’d turn it all down. But Peter isn’t here. So Tony builds his collection of regrets.

He opens the door to the spare bedroom across from Wanda’s (a layer of dust is collecting on everything these days) and looks at the bare mattress, the empty desk and the blank walls. Peter crashed here sometimes when they went too late in the lab or when he was exhausted after a mission. Tony should have gotten Peter sheets for the room, set up a bookcase for his textbooks in case he ever wanted to stay at the compound over the weekend.

Numb and single-minded, Tony orders all that. He fits the sheets on the mattress, smooths them out and makes the bed so Peter will feel at home. A Spider-Man linen set, naturally. He thinks to himself, Peter will find that funny. (He imagines Peter laughing, realizes he can’t remember what that sounds like. Has it been so long?)

Tony looks up Peter’s syllabus and orders all his textbooks for the semester, arranges them carefully in an antique bookshelf once owned by Rosalind Franklin - he remembers Peter saying she was his favorite chemist. For a brief moment, he hopes Peter gets to meet Dr. Franklin wherever he is now - the thought sears, and he drinks himself to sleep that night.

He sits in Peter’s room sometimes, perches on the end of the bed and looks around at the uninhabited space around him, tries to imagine Peter hunched over his desk or pacing on the ceiling like he does when he’s caught up in a formula. His therapist says it’s unhealthy, that he should be looking forward instead of into the past. This _is_ forward, he tells Nat over one of their late-night strategy sessions, this is for when Peter comes back. Nat says “I know”, puts her hand over his. She doesn’t meet his eyes.

Tony builds his collection in gestures and money. He tracks down all of Peter’s high school friends he’s ever mentioned even in passing and pays off their tuitions, makes sure their student loans are taken care of. (The ones who aren't around anymore, he does the same for them. They'll be back soon enough.)

May comes to see him, the day before the anniversary. Tony is wracked with guilt that he hasn’t gone to see her sooner - “I thought you might want to be alone,” he admits. May tells him she can’t bear the loneliness these days. They sit in the too-empty compound and talk quietly, a Peter-shaped space between them.

He tells May about what he’s been doing, admits it’s not enough. “These are just things, Tony,” May tells him, her words soft and resigned, like she’s learned the same thing in the past year. “Bring my boy back. That’ll be enough.”

When she leaves, he throws himself back into the schematics, upgrades the Hulkbuster, reviews all the lore Wong had been able to send him from the Sanctum. He doesn’t sleep for 4 days. Cap comes down at hour 80, his face set. He’s fine, he can keep going, Tony tells him through gritted teeth. He has to, or else they’ll never get them back. Cap looks at him for a long while and then, to Tony’s surprise, he nods. “Where can I help?”

Peter would love this, Tony thinks dazedly, seeing him and Cap working as a unit again. He passes out and dreams of Peter. He’s haloed in gold light and his eyes are bright, alive. ‘Bring me back,’ Peter begs him. ‘I miss you, Tony.’

He snaps awake, electricity coursing through his veins and an idea burgeoning in his mind, or maybe that’s the migraine. “I know how to fix this,” he says.

They lose people. It _hurts_ , watching more people die, all on a bet that even Tony’s not sure will work. But this time, he doesn’t mourn his own survival - he doesn’t have the time.

They surge on and it works. They win.

Tony’s standing on Titan, half-dead on his feet, what’s left of Mark 129 bracing his cracked bones and stemming the worst of the bleeding. It worked, Nat tells him, her voice strained and exhausted, but victorious. They won. In the background of the comm feed, he can hear people crying and shouting, relieved and _alive_.

And then he sees them. Swirls of ash forming from the light atmosphere, gathering and solidifying into faces that Tony’s memorized in the years since. First Drax, then Quill and Mantis, then Strange. The Guardians coalesce the remnants of their shattered family and Strange gets to his feet, meeting Tony’s eyes.

Panic - a familiar feeling by now - rises in Tony’s throat. “Where is he?” He croaks, his heart pounding so loud in his ears he can hardly hear his own words.

“On the way,” Strange tells him, just as a final ribbon of ash appears in the gold of setting suns.

And then, just like he dreamt it, Peter appears in front of him - unscathed and alive. He lets out a broken sob and he’s falling into Tony’s arms, but it’s nothing like the last time. This time, Tony has strength enough to hold them both up.

He can hear himself crying, wounded heaving sobs as the years of accumulated grief finally break open and mend. He’s clawing at Peter, clutching at him so he can’t slip through his fingers again and Peter’s squeezing him around the middle so tight Tony can feel his broken ribs protesting, but it’s nothing to having him back.

  
A week later, he shows Peter his room, admits the collection of _things_ he’s amassed in Peter’s absence. Just as he’d hoped, Peter loves the Spider-Man bedsheets, gives Tony an exasperated but fond look when he hears what he’s done. But he leans his forehead against Tony’s and kisses him, his lips soft, warm and _real_. “I love it Tony,” he murmurs, “I love it all.”

A little sob escapes Tony’s throat (he cries a lot these days, but Peter doesn’t seem to mind). He nods, kisses Peter back with an urgency that he doesn’t think will fade for a while yet. “Good,” he rasps. “That’s good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [tumblr](https://peterparkers7evilexes.tumblr.com/).


End file.
